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Killers and Other Family

Friday, December 09 th, 2016 at 00:12 am

Killers and Other Family

Killers and Other Family – Theater Review

SYNOPSIS

Just when Elizabeth (Samantha Soule) thinks she has finally escaped her previous life, that life comes crashing back in when her brother (Dashiell Eaves) and his best friend (Shane McRae) show up, on the run, demanding she hide them. Their arrival forces Elizabeth to truly confront her past, pushing her into a waking nightmare in which fears and memories become all too real. Also featuring Aya Cash. Rattlestick Playwrights Theater revisits this play first produced in 2001.

JOY’S REVIEW

Killers and Other Family is part of a five part saga written by Lucy Thurber, who apparently has no relation to James Thurber, because there is not much humor in this. It is at the Rattlestick Playwright’s Theatre, which is in The Village, and it occurs to me that I am not sure I have ever seen anything at The Rattlestick that didn’t have to do with violence and death, and this is certainly no exception. The idea is that a woman is visited by her brother and his friend, and it turns out his friend has probably raped the girl. The girl is now in a lesbian relationship, and it gets very violent and very sexual, to the extent that of the small cast of four, two end up naked. They are all very attractive people, so the nudity is not particularly upsetting from an aesthetic point of view, but I don’t know if this is about the redemptive power of love or that passion is brutal — I am not sure what it’s about, and it was uncomfortable to watch, other than the fact of some nice looking people who were pretty good actors. I think the problem is not in the acting, and probably not even the direction. I think the story is just something that is unclear and a bit garbled and very hard to watch.JOY METER★★★★★